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Friday, August 30, 2013

Where'd You Go, Bernadette

Moving right along, our next book is Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple, because the cover jumped right out at me while I was browsing at Books-A-Million and heck, SUMMER READING IS STILL IN PROGRESS, right? 

Absolutely.
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2 comments:

  1. BeccaSeptember 1, 2013 at 9:17 PM

    I wonder if the story was told from the perspective of Bee, not only to show the impact of a mental illness/defect, could have on a child. A child that had her own medical issues as a young child. Makes me wonder if Bernadette’s attitudes about life in Seattle rubbed off on Bee. Bee, a child trying to learn to make her way in a world with a detached mother and nearly never around father.

    I wonder if Bernadette was always a little “off”. I know that is probably not the right term, but to be so determined to achieve what she did, and then to become so frenetic and inconsolable when the house was destroyed is beyond the pale. Makes me wonder if there was a history of mental illness or emotional neediness in her.

    I wonder if Bernadette felt that in moving to Seattle she was losing grasp of her dream and reality. Her husband had the opportunity for his job. Felt like she was a no one in a land that was unfamiliar, and apparently sounding hostile to her? So build up a wall of not participating in any events, and not realize that you are becoming a person that people fear or do not want to be around.

    I think that Audrey is the most transformed. I think in her own need to be the ultimate, bestest soccer parent, nosy busybody, she never realized the web of lies and deceit that she was causing. The lie about the accident in the car pool lane, not seeing that her son and husband were both addicted by substance. Her seriously over the top type A personality. And then realizing that she could have gone to jail, her husband and alcoholic, and son a drug abuser. And she was oblivious to all of it. Her wakeup call when her son went to the intervention camp must have given her a massive dose of reality of all the havoc that she was wielding on other people’s lives.

    I think that Bernadette and Audrey are more alike in that they are scared of what people might think of them if they let their collective guards down and showed their humanity. I think each one was doing whatever it took to be aloof and aloft of the people in the circles of their lives.

    She was an outsider of her own making. I think her fear of failure after the 20 mile project made her question everything in her life. Then the miscarriages. And then a child with a severe heart problem. Who would not question their own worth and where they fit into life? I think that it might have been harder to fit into society when your life revolved in ways that you might not think others would understand.

    I give this 4.5 stars! Loved it, and it kept me reading all the way through to the end!

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  2. Chief PeepSeptember 4, 2013 at 7:51 AM

    This is by far one of the best books I've read in a very long time, and I'm almost sad to be done reading it!

    Your review is "spot on", Becca. I had similar thoughts about Bernadette (was she going mental due to her untapped gifts?); Audrey being the most transformed who finally lived out her self-proclaimed Christianity by intervening on Bernadette's intervention; and both Bernadette and Audrey being alike, even teaming up at the end (never saw that coming!)

    Characters were well developed, believable, and likeable. The story had me guessing right up until the end, and I just couldn't put it down.

    5 stars and new favorite

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